Target angles for Outer Limits and Showdown?

[RickT]

All other stages angle targets toward the center box.  My practice is to angle the outer target pairs (OL and Showdown) toward their respective boxes, but is there a "standard"/customary practice?

[nso123]

On OL I am not sure there is a preferred angle, it’s more of me getting almost out of box 1 and barely in box 2. I shoot front, back, front, back, stop. For Showdown I index off of the opposite back target from the box I am in. 

[zzt]

Standard practice is to have all targets parallel to the boxes.  Said another way, at right angles to the long axis of the bay.

[mreed911]

The stage diagrams show them angled: https://scsa.org/stages

[ZackJones]

At WSSC for Showdown, Outer Limits, Accelerator, The Pendulum, and Roundabout we set them parallel to the front edge of the shooting box. All other stages have one or more plates angled. 

[Sigarmsp226]

Just learned me something from this thread.....Great question RickT and thanks Zack for your detailed reply....Mark

[RickT]

6 hours ago, ZackJones said:

At WSSC for Showdown, Outer Limits, Accelerator, The Pendulum, and Roundabout we set them parallel to the front edge of the shooting box. All other stages have one or more plates angled. 

Zack, Should there be an update to the rules?  Parallel makes sense for OL and SD where the rule doesn't cover these stages, but does cover the other six.  I don't have a dog in this hunt in any event other than when I set up OL and SD for practice (wife and I) I do angle the outer targets (slightly) toward the same-side box.  All other stages I angle toward the box per the current rule.

[AR_James]

11 hours ago, ZackJones said:

At WSSC for Showdown, Outer Limits, Accelerator, The Pendulum, and Roundabout we set them parallel to the front edge of the shooting box. All other stages have one or more plates angled. 

 

With 2.2 Layout of the Stages stating, "Plates should be angled towards the shooting box to minimize skips and ricochets and

provide a uniform target surface and appearance" we have been angling the plates towards the shooter's box.  Is this no longer correct?  

 

[zzt]

The problem with angling targets toward the shooter has to do with safety.  Many clubs that host SCSA have the bays tightly spaced.  The splatter from a round striking the target is parallel to the surface of the target.  So when you angle targets, some of the splatter goes over the berm and rains on shooters in an adjacent bay.  Sometimes the chunks are large enough to hurt.  This is especially noticeable when the bays are short and the side berms low.  Raising the side berms creates other problems like echo pickups on the 7000 timers usually used.  One club created 8 bays specifically for SCSA.  They host the East Coast Steel Challenge Series.  Each bay is specific to a classifier and that stage is always in that bay.  They have serious echo problems on the long stages because the side walls are really high.  Another club deepened some of the existing pistol bays to accommodate SCSA stages.  All the others use existing rifle and pistol bays.  They set up standard SCSA stages where possible, and outlaw stages where not.

 

Half the clubs I shoot at will angle the stop plate on 5TG.  Half will angle the four rectangles in S&H.  I don't recall any angling on SO.

[Thomas H]

13 hours ago, AR_James said:

 

With 2.2 Layout of the Stages stating, "Plates should be angled towards the shooting box to minimize skips and ricochets and

provide a uniform target surface and appearance" we have been angling the plates towards the shooter's box.  Is this no longer correct?  

 

 

We take any stage with one shooting box, and angle the plates to face that shooting box.

 

On stages with two or three shooting boxes (since those plates are generally either centered OR far in the distance) we have the plates set parallel to the line connecting the front edges of the shooting boxes.    (Since it isn't possible to angle plates to match two different boxes, much less three.)

 

I don't see how the rules really allow for much of anything else. 

 

"At WSSC for Showdown, Outer Limits, Accelerator, The Pendulum, and Roundabout we set them parallel to the front edge of the shooting box."

 

And that's interesting to me, because on Accelerator especially (and Roundabout also), not angling the plates on the ends does make an appreciable difference in terms of the size of the "face" that is presented to the shooter.

[RickT]

Perhaps the rule should read "range conditions permit angle all plates toward the shooting box (SD and OL excepted)".  I've shot in bays ("pits" in Idaho: go figure) where the side berms barely extend up range of the shooting box.  Plates 2 and 3 on S&H can cause problems, Plate 1 on accelerator and definitely the 5TG stop plate. 

[Gregg K]

3 hours ago, RickT said:

Perhaps the rule should read "range conditions permit angle all plates toward the shooting box (SD and OL excepted)".  I've shot in bays ("pits" in Idaho: go figure) where the side berms barely extend up range of the shooting box.  Plates 2 and 3 on S&H can cause problems, Plate 1 on accelerator and definitely the 5TG stop plate. 

Exactly, I have found that if I angle S&H to the shooting box that we get too much splatter into adjacent bays. For safety I have to set it up parallel to the shooting box.

[zzt]

Well, I shot a match today at one of the clubs that angles the stop plate on 5TG.  The bay to the right was Pen.  The side berm was narrow and low.  The shooter and RO on Pen were showered with splatter.  I didn't mind as RO, but it isn't fair to the shooter.  It's distracting.

[Thomas H]

On 4/24/2021 at 1:49 PM, zzt said:

Well, I shot a match today at one of the clubs that angles the stop plate on 5TG.  The bay to the right was Pen.  The side berm was narrow and low.  The shooter and RO on Pen were showered with splatter.  I didn't mind as RO, but it isn't fair to the shooter.  It's distracting.

 

Sounds like if at all possible, they should have set it up on a different bay.

 

If the stop plate on 5 To Go isn't angled towards the shooting box, it presents a significantly smaller target area to the shooter. 

 

Way back when, when we were arguing/discussing about whether or not to angle the plates in the first place, I calculated the difference in the target size between "plates parallel to the shooting box" and "plates facing the shooting box" and turned them into a percentage of the plate that you'll lose if the plate is NOT facing the shooting box.

 

The right-most plate on 5 To Go loses over one-fifth of its facing area if it is parallel to the shooting box and not facing the shooter.  That's going to make a difference to people's shooting times.  The outer plates on Smoke & Hope also lose a surprising amount.  And I personally wouldn't want to lose almost a tenth of the target area on plate 4 on Speed Option, either.  (Nor any of the others in red, really.)

 

Outer Limits and Showdown lose so little that it functionally won't matter (calculations made under the assumption that the targets will face the center of the shooting box array).

 

 

As I said, at our club we angle all the plates to face the shooter's box if it is a single shooting box.  Easy, and consistent.  If there are multiple shooting boxes, we keep all plates parallel to the line made by the front of the shooter's boxes.  Again, easy and consistent.  

 

[zzt]

2 hours ago, Thomas H said:

Sounds like if at all possible, they should have set it up on a different bay.

 

If it were possible they would have.  Unfortunately, only two bays are wide enough to allow OL, 5TG and SO, so they always get set up in those bays on a rotating schedule.  The range is on a mountain top and there usually is a fairly stiff breeze blowing down range.  That takes care of the problem, for the most part.  On Sat the air was still.

 

Look, I'm a bit of a stickler for rules, but safety comes first.  I'd much rather see non-angled plates than have no match at all.

[Thomas H]

Just now, zzt said:

Look, I'm a bit of a stickler for rules, but safety comes first.  I'd much rather see non-angled plates than have no match at all.

 

No argument there. 

 

I did say "if possible" after all.

 

Another thing to try is to angle the stage in the bay slightly---the stage doesn't have to be parallel with the back berm, and if angling it slightly to the left means that the right-most plate on 5 To Go is no longer a problem, while still not being angled enough to be an issue on the left side, there's a possibility.

 

I'll note you said that the initial situation wasn't a safety issue, just annoying for the other shooter.    Hence my comment of "if possible" and the point about the fact that if the target isn't angled, it is going to make a substantive difference in stage times.